Adventures in Womanhood

Bleaching vs. Tanning

Do you remember that scene in Final Destination (I don’t remember which one, I never really watched them) where the girls gets fried alive in the tanning bed?

(If you’re from Jamaica) Do you remember that girl/guy you saw on the side of the street who’s face and neck were about five shades lighter than their arms?

It occurs to me that people are just never satisfied with their lot. Black people want to be whiter and white people want to be blacker. This logically extends to fat people want to be skinnier and skinny people want to be fatter (at least here they do). On one hand dissatisfaction is the mother of innovation; if we were all complacent the human race wouldn’t have much forward motion. But on the other hand people really need to learn to be happy with themselves.

The real point of this post though is to point out that bleaching and tanning are two sides of the same coin. We make a big fuss about the psychology behind one and let the other slide because it’s mostly practised by snobby rich girls.